Friday, May 26, 2017

In keeping with what I want to be become a habit, here’s a
bit of a rundown of last weekend (5/19-21) and what we did at the Ohio
Beast/Sprint weekend. We have mapped out our race schedule early in the year
and even though this is our “home” race we decided to mix it up a bit and not
run but rather explore new things. This meant the Kid’s Race for our 3 that are
not old enough to participate in the full Spartan races, volunteering at the
race and then the Spartan Endurance event, Hurricane Heat.

For the TL;DR crowd – we had fun and got very muddy. 10/10
would do it again. 😉

The whole weekend revolved around Spartan Race and driving
back and forth to Chandlersville, OH which is about 1h45m from home. My son and
I signed up to be volunteers and this was new for us. We received the email
notifying us so sign up for times to volunteer a few weeks before the race. I
was hoping we could volunteer to help with course setup as I think it would be
neat to see some of the logistics behind a Spartan Race but they require you to
be 18. I meet that requirement (by a few years!) but my son does not. We tossed around different ideas and settled
on the Course Marshal position where we would be recording the Elite athletes
and verifying their burpee penalty if they failed the obstacle. We could easily
do this job Sunday AM and then participate in the Hurricane Heat later that
afternoon so it sounded like a perfect opportunity!

One caveat for the Course Marshal position is that we needed
to attend training Friday afternoon, but you get a free race *and* a hoodie. We
made the trek to the race site and met up with Alex who showed us the camera
and how to use it. It was simple to do and seemed easy enough. All in all,
training took maybe 20 minutes and much of that was standing around
chit-chatting with the other volunteers. We drove home and were excited about
the weekend ahead.

Saturday came and today was all about the kids. We packed
into the van and headed to the course. For our youngest 3, this would be their
first Spartan Race. They have never even been to a course because there really
isn’t much for a spectator to do while your racers are out and about. It was
foggy and overcast with the threat of rain all weekend but it’s a Spartan Race
so mud is part of the fun. The youngest two have done plenty of 5Ks and the
oldest of the three has also done some 10k trail races so they were well
prepared. We checked in and walked
around the festival area while waiting for their wave to go out onto the
course. We watched the Beast runners
start a few waves and then walked over to some of the other obstacles and
watched people take a crack at them.

Once it was finally time, they loaded into their starting
corral (complete with wall to climb over!!) and waited the last few minutes.
This is where the local Spartan Race team really did a good job. The Beast
runners were maybe 20 feet away from the Kid’s Race starting corral so the
starter for the Beast had them “coach” the kids on how to start and say AROO.
The kids really liked this and helped make them feel like they were getting
ready to do something epic (which they were). They got to listen to the usual
Spartan starting speech (check it out here if you’ve not heard
it) and watch the 10AM beast wave go out. Additionally, this was the official
Corn Fed Spartans wave and there must have been 100 Corn Fed in the corral and
our kids were sporting their jerseys.
Jen from Spartan Race, was the starter for the Kid’s Race and she got
them loose and warmed up with some light exercises before sending them off on
their 1 mile race.

Spartan Race does a great job of making the Kid’s Race
similar to the regular races and they had an A-Frame, inverted wall, regular
wall, spear throw, mud pits, mud crawl, balance beams and more around the 1
mile, undulating course. Our kids had a great time and did amazing with helping
each other over the obstacles and being true Corn Fed Spartans. They finished
the race and collected their finisher medals and enjoyed a post-race snack.
Afterwards we walked around a lot more and went to watch some of the new
obstacles like Olympus and some classics like the multi-rig and sandbag
carry. We called it a day and drove
home.

The next day my son and I were up at 3:45AM to head back to
the course to start our volunteer shift at 5:30AM. We made great time as there
wasn’t a lot of traffic on the roads for some reason. Ha! We checked in at the volunteer tent to get
our assignment which was spear throw. Spear throw is one of the most failed
obstacles on the course and is considered by many to be a burpee machine. Our
job would be to record all of the Elite male racers, record their bib number if
they failed and then later, count their burpees. We would stop counting the men
once the first women Elite showed up and then record 30 of them before packing
up and heading back to review the footage.

We hopped in the ATV that would take us out to our obstacle
and away we went. The course was super muddy from the rain and pounding that a
few thousand Beast runners gave it and we were slipping and sliding all over. During the ride my cell phone fell out of my
pocket but we luckily found it. I was
afraid it fell into some of the soupy mud and was gone for good. We got dropped
off at the spear throw and mounted the camera and got it in position and then
killed some time working on our spear throw technique. It’s not often you get a
chance to practice on a real setup as you get one shot during the race and if
you miss – 30 burpees. We also walked
down to one of the new obstacles, Twister. This one looks like a burpee machine
to me as well!

As it got closer to race time we went back to our station
and awaited the first runners. It didn’t take too long for us to hear them
pounding down the trail and the leaders all stuck their throws – whoo hoo! After that, chaos ensued as groups of runners
arrived, some missing and some hitting. We got the runner’s bib number either
as they went by or while they were doing their burpees. I would write their
number down on a white board, show it to the camera and get the next one. It
was crazy busy and at times we had 9 or 10 runners grinding out their
penalties. It was maybe half an hour
before the first ladies came through. As with the men, the first runners made
their throws and then the burpees stacked up.
We stopped collecting men’s bib numbers and focused on the women and
started counting them as they came through. Once we hit 30, we turned off the
camera and hitched a ride back to base camp.

We then started the tedious process of counting each burpee
to make sure the runners completed their penalty. This wasn’t too bad when
there were only a few but as the number of people entering and leaving the
burpee zone increased it became confusing.
We had to rewind and review multiple times since the penalty for not
doing 30 burpees is a 30 second penalty for each one missed! Ouch! The Elites are running for money and
points in the standings so it is no joke and we took our job very seriously.
All in all we only had to report 3 men for penalties – the women were all legit
at 30 or more.

We finished our shift around 10:00 AM and we needed to kill
some time until the 2PM start of the Hurricane Heat. We walked over to the
Biggest Team tent, which was awarded to the Crazy Mudder Muckers and they were
kind enough to share with the Corn Fed Spartans. It was nice to talk with
people as they prepared to go out for their race or as they came in. The Hurricane Heat (HH) is a 4+ hour Spartan
Endurance event that is not a race. Its focus is on teamwork and the Warrior
Ethos. Both my son and I were signed up for it, but after a visit to the Dr.
Friday morning, I had to sit it out due to a pulled abdominal muscle. I was
bumming that I couldn’t get in on the fun, but knew it made sense for the long
term as we have a busy race schedule now that summer is here. I figured while I was there and my son was
doing the HH I would see if I could pickup another volunteer shift.

Part of the HH is designed to be a bit of mystery and being
late to the event results in group punishment (50 burpees for the 1st
late person, 100 for the 2nd and so on) so the HH participants
started to gather around 12:30 for gear check and to make sure everyone was
ready. My son was eager to join the group so he went to have some fun in the
mud and I went to the volunteer tent. I’ve heard there is no shortage of need
for volunteers and this held true so I signed back in to work at bag check.

Bag check was a lot more fun than I thought it would be as
we got to see many of the racers as they came off the course and congratulate
them. For quite a few it was their first Spartan Race ever and they loved it
and for a very small few, they were convinced they’d never do one again. When
we were not getting people’s bags we stood around in the rain and talked with
the other volunteers. I talked with a lady from New Hampshire who had competed
in the “Tough Guy” OCR in England as well as 3 or 4 years of various Spartan
Races. Another volunteer was in her
first year of racing and everything in between. It was fun to hear what other people have done
and what they do for a day job. OCR has
all kinds of people that participate in it.

As the racers found their way through the course, we were
asked to help tear down the festival area. This is a pretty daunting task but
as the saying goes, many hands make light work.
We all worked well as a team and tore our area down. As we were
finishing up, we were asked to go to the finish line to cheer on the final
group of racers. It was awesome to see this group of 8 people help and push
each other through the last few obstacles and then cross the finish
together. They were having a great time
and they had a lot of volunteers cheering them on. Once they got their medals it was back to
work for us. We finished the final tear down just in time to see the HH group
come back from their fun in the woods and do 110 burpees (it was HH class 110
so that’s where the number came from).
They were caked in mud and smiles all around when they were finished.

My son and I stood around for a bit and talked with some
Corn Fed who were still there before walking to the car and heading home. It was quite a weekend and different from one
in where we’ve raced but it was nice to see Spartan from a different
perspective. We met a lot of really neat people and met many of the people we
talk with on social media about OCR as well.
I am looking forward to the next race in Chicago where I’ll be running
for my first Super of 2017 on my way to a double trifecta. Aroo!

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About Me

Field Engineer at VMware focused on NSX though blog posts are all my own. Husband, father, F1 fanatic and geek.
Ron Fuller is a Staff Engineer in the Network and Security Business Unit (NSBU) focused on NSX for VMware. He has 22 years of experience in the industry and has held certifications from VMware, Novell, HP, Microsoft, ISC2, SNIA, and Cisco including two CCIEs No. 5851 (Routing and Switching/Storage Networking). His focus is working with customers to address their challenges with comprehensive end-to-end Data Center architectures and how they can best utilize VMware technology to their advantage. He is the co-author of the VMware Press NSX Fundamentals LiveLesson video series. This adds to his existing body of work with CiscoPress. He has had the opportunity to speak in Europe, Australia and the United States on multiple networking and security topics. He lives in Ohio with his wife and four wonderful children and enjoys travel and auto racing. He can be found on Twitter @ccie5851.